Why is the war going on in Mexico ? Drug dealers are often trying to keep low profile elsewhere. They often make truce with each other, some kind of territorial "arrangements", bribes, accepting compromises in order to keep money flowing. Why is Mexico different ? It is not just police vs. criminals, but criminals vs. criminals, as well.

Why is the war going on in Mexico ? Drug dealers are often trying to keep low profile elsewhere. They often make truce with each other, some kind of territorial "arrangements", bribes, accepting compromises in order to keep money flowing. Why is Mexico different ? It is not just police vs. criminals, but criminals vs. criminals, as well.

it is because the law enforcement and the communities are so intimidated by the gangs the only restrictions on their activities are other gangs.

The cops always know who the criminals are, even if they can’t prove it. In normal situations this allows the cops to act as a brake when the criminals activities got out of hand. Take Chicago during Prohibition. Corruption was pandemic and the cops were paid off to ignore the gangs for the most part. Warfare between the gangs would increase until it made the headlines, like the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, at which point the cops would get the word to crack down and would arrest every gang member they could on any charge they could hold them on, and raid to shutdown all gang related business. Then when things quieted down the criminals would be released with a slap on the wrist and things would go back to normal (including the bribes to the police and politicians). Think of it as an enforced ‘time out’ for unnecessary roughness.

The exception to the rule was if a gang member killed a cop. Then the cops gave that gang all their attention until the killer was found, the other gangs got too far out of hand (because all the police attention was elsewhere), or enough time passed (usually a year or more). In most cases the gang ratted out the killer, and in some the damage was so great that the gang went under. So the cops were mostly off limits for the violence.

Obviously this is not the case in parts of Mexico, so the violence just keeps escalating. The military is now trying to use its greater resources to reestablish the power of the state to limit the violence, but we will have to wait and see how it plays out.